Fort Worth EOC Deploys WebEOC for 2011 Super Bowl and Ice Event

Date: 2011-02-14

The city of Fort Worth, Texas, the 17th largest city in the United States, purchased, configured, trained and successfully deployed WebEOC® emergency management software from ESi® in three-and-a-half months, just in time for the 2011 Super Bowl and an unexpected snow and ice storm in the days leading up to the big event. On January 30, only a week prior to “Super Week,” the city also opened the doors to a brand-new emergency operations center.

The Super Bowl was held in Cowboys Stadium, approximately 25 minutes from downtown Fort Worth, and the city was host to the AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers, ESPN broadcast facilities, and a host of NFL sanctioned events, fan parties, and concerts.

“We project that nearly 200,000 football fans came down to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to be part of the Super Bowl week experience,” said Juan Ortiz, Emergency Management Coordinator, Office of Emergency Management, City of Fort Worth. “It’s a huge event for us to manage in terms of security, traffic, and logistics. Then we had an ice storm followed by five inches of snow two days before the big event, so we had to deal with snow removal and sanding roads. WebEOC really helped us coordinate our resources and response for the special events and the weather.”

Fort Worth’s EOC activation included participants from city agencies and county departments, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Red Cross, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “For the event, we created WebEOC accounts for more than 300 people, and at peak times, 50 to 60 people were logged in. We managed more than 250 individual missions in WebEOC during the week,” Mr. Ortiz said.

“Key personnel used iPads to view and post to the WebEOC Significant Events board, even from meetings across town. WebEOC Mapper Professional gave us a map view of board data on our big screens, which was very helpful for managing traffic bottlenecks downtown. Now that the event is over, I really like that we can use the WebEOC reporting function to track what we did and how we can improve our processes,” Mr. Ortiz added.

“WebEOC has proven to be a vital communications tool, not only managing major disasters, such as Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna, and Ike in the South and wild fires in the West, but also for planned events, such as President Obama’s inauguration, the Boston Marathon, and the Preakness Race,” said Nadia Butler, ESi President and Chief Executive Officer. “We’re very happy that the team in the Fort Worth EOC was able to benefit from the ease of use, configurability, and common operating picture that WebEOC provides in time for this year’s Super Bowl.”

“During the Super Bowl, I was in the Fort Worth EOC to assist in any way possible,” said Kent Cawley, ESi Regional Manager. "It was gratifying to see that so many of the users who were new to WebEOC found it easy to use, especially when they got logged-in and started posting information. It was also a very positive experience for these new users because Juan and his team kept their processes simple."